


Meet Me at the Ren Faire

by LostInQueue



Category: Star Wars, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Adventure, Armor, Battle, Dragons, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Gen, HEA, Magic, Nightmares, Protection, Quest, Renaissance Fair, Shadows - Freeform, Soulmates, Stars, Transformation, galaxy, life cycles, nebula - Freeform, powerful darkness, powerful light, searching for meaning, warriors - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-12
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-01-12 07:27:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 22,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18441839
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LostInQueue/pseuds/LostInQueue
Summary: A long, long time ago, the First Obsidian dragon warrior Kylo Ren, protector of the unknown reaches lies waiting for the morning star to end his life cycle. During the night a shooting star falls from the heavens taking his form after she lands. His last duty while he’s still alive is to further her knowledge to help her survive before his time in this cycle comes to an end.





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> This was brought on by an idea to do short stories with a maximum count of steps taken on my phone during the day. Kaybohls made me an awesome moodboard that will be featured in the next chapter which will take place in present day. The images she selected blew my mind and my creativity went wild. 
> 
> Thank you sooooooo much for this Kaybohls! I can’t even tell you how exciting this one is for me.
> 
> Also, really trying to stress the fact that they aren’t immortal. They do die and stay dead. It’s closer to the concept of reincarnation, and their spirit animal stays the dragon. 
> 
> There will be art for this. All of Rehy’s forms in the prelude and Kylo’s as well.Rehy's first dragon form  
> [](https://ibb.co/n6JSW5q)
> 
> 😊
> 
> Music for this is:  
> Sunder by Really Slow Motion &  
> Who Will Save Us Now by David Chappell
> 
> I hope you enjoy it 💖💖🐉✨

A long, long time ago, in a time of unknown power, darkness stretches as far as the eye can see. It’s said that it knows no passion of wills, growing ever larger, smothering every life baring soul until it’s nothing but a wisp of its true self.  


From the darkness which knew no light, a star was born. Unheard of, but true, her brilliant light pulses like a heartbeat through the internal night. Searching. Waiting... Breathing new life with a spectrum of color burning brightly as she does, her protective nebula grows around her. Whispers of this new life band in ribbons around her before they explode in bright bold colors ranging from raging reds to cooling blues stretching as far as her core could reach. 

In the beginning of time star’s only purpose is to reach out and heal what’s been broken. From the time of her creation she knew this, she’d never be as bright as the morning star colonizing new stars to stretch out as far as they can reach. She is light years away from everything... everything that is, except for the darkness. 

It’s then when she realizes the stars sitting around the morning sun haven’t the slightest idea that there’s more. They’re huddled together pretending that they’re changing this but they aren’t. There are no fields of color like she knows they can do, making her wonder what the point was in all of this. 

She knows now that while her expanse is great, she could never undo the limitless darkness. Not here. Which means dark and light had to mean something else.

She would have to find a new form. 

One that had more than light and power. 

One that could reach out and heal a void deep within ones darkened heart. 

And so, to start her journey, her light shrank back onto her, encapsulating herself in an unbreakable sphere to use her force to hurtle herself to a world out in the unknown reaches, out where a morning star is dying...out where the darkness is soon to swallow them whole.

———-

There’s no way to know where she is, but knows she’s landed. Her uncertainty drains her surrounding shell from the protective layer it once had, in turn it makes her weaker than she once was. Here, the star knew no emotions, it only knew light, dark and time as if she was reborn.

Time. 

What a tragic thing being the ability to track how long the dreaded darkness had taken over.  


Her light inside, now just a speck of her once radiant self, decided to break free. It doesn’t take much. Just a prick with her last remaining shards of blue light to the weakest layer of her shell will do. It took very little of that dreaded measurement to destroy what she had left. Her remaining light was poured into that shell, and now it was gone at the softest touch. It would be foolish to expect any less in a universe so cold.  


Now, smaller than the pebbles below her in size, she takes in her surroundings. The ground looks as tortured as she is. Plant life is hardly what she’d call alive since it looked as if it was all tortured pieces of a once thriving land. 

Darkness and decay flitted around her in the form of ash, suffocating her. If she stayed the tiny star she is she will surely die.

Time. 

That bastard. 

It would tell her to become one with this world and she would have no chance to stop it. 

What’s left of the star’s blue haze reaches the ground, copying the wasteland around her onto her core as the shell once did, finding heat beyond the surface. 

Curiosity is new. 

Perhaps it comes with this place.

She feels down deeper into the layers of the ground, searching for its heat, but just as she does, that same promise chases her back to the surface. It’s unrelenting. Just like the darkness.  


Her core flies back into a pile of rotting plant flesh, sticks, shattered pieces of her shell, pebbles from which she measured herself up against, and ash. She shrieks in pain as her form burns the pieces to her. 

Her sound. Did she make that? There’s no time to think about it as the pieces of the land mark her, making her into a beast instead of the guardian she once was. 

What used to be bright billowing colors of her nebula were now multiple extremities of flesh that makes her wonder about their importance.

All at once she has senses, emotions, nothing she can understand fully, but of them she remembers sound. She’s made it several times as her new body formed. The retched pain was the next to identify with, followed by what seemed to be extreme heat followed by a cold snap that threatened to shatter her center. 

That is, until the warmth underneath the land, deep within the soil, harnesses the next of her senses: hearing. She’s made a sound, many in fact, but following one not made by herself, is new. She moves her body as a whole toward it. Pieces that are bound to it float and grind into each other, stirring her need to howl at the feel, but something inside her tells her otherwise. This new sound, not her own, plants a cold dread down within her core. It may be the darkness she’s looking to heal…Her innocence is called to the land. Every moment she stayed on it the warmth would creep on her, winding through the layers of her decay, promising a better life deep down under the soil. 

It’s now when she develops her adaptiveness. That luring promise just chased her from the depths. It threw her into the pile. It made her who she is now—into whatever she could classify herself as now. She takes a moment to look over herself missing the way that her light would stretch across the night. She’s no star. Not anymore. So, what is she now? 

There’s nothing else to do than to take stock of what’s happened. Her new form she now has eight appendages, all in charge of something different. Four on the ground must be there for standing on the surface. Another moves willfully with her thoughts, turning in directions she needs to see where as her light could see all, in every direction. This is frustrating and confusing all at once. It has an opening with another strangely wet addition moving around between it. Another part behind her is ribbed instead. It’s long and moves on its own as she stands, idly she wonders what the purpose is. Finally, she looks up behind her, as they reach up far higher than her sight, limiting the view of the swaying thing behind her.

These, they’re large. She can stretch them up and above her like the colored gasses in the darkness back when she knew what she was. They move as she once did, higher and higher until they’re at their full length, which is but a fraction of what she used to be able to reach. 

But it will do. 

It will have to. 

The threat grows beneath her forcing her to move. 

Without any true understanding of what she is or what her new form can do, she lunges forward pressing her large appendages downward hard. The feeling can only give her enough freedom reaching but only a marginal amount of space between her and the ground. Doing the best she can, she moves them, all of them, and the anchoring thing behind her to help her find her place in the dark sky. 

Up. 

Her little form is hard to move at first, but she manages, flying nearly high enough to reach the tops of the scorched graveyard of whatever this place might have been. 

The sky is dark but twinkles. She’s sure she sees the shattered pieces of herself scattered across the darkness, but knows it wasn’t her; she’s here. Those were the souls of strangers watching her journey. They did not seek the balance between light and dark... Where she had once felt free, she felt sadness. Betrayal. Her own kind there amongst it like they knew what it was or why it was there.

In her fury, she tucks her front, “Maker what are they?” She bends her body to see them better as she in and leans forward again in to land. Hmm. Land. It’s as good of sound for the ground beneath her.

Land.

Good. 

Sounds were constant, keeping her sense of alarm always ready as she stepped through the land. This place was far louder than the darkness. It had so much to say. 

Leaves on her face distort her view. They crinkle as she moves making her still constantly. She stops just in time to sense something extra, not her, instead a creature of an unreasonable size stalking the brush behind her. It hisses and growls, making awful warning signals, but she’s not of the wiser. She was just reborn today after all. 

“Rrrrrrr” the sound grumbles trying to push her out of its space. It hisses right after, sounding more like it was calling her something.  
She listens for it again. This time it’s much louder, making the ground rumble underneath her.

“Rrrrrrrreeeeehhhyyyy” it hisses. 

When she looks around, she’s met with the largest figure she’s seen. At best she could tell the rocky terrain stretched as far as they eye could see, the dead vegetation, what was left of it at least, grew high but it was not nearly as large as this beast, she’s sure of it. Light still glowing in her eyes gives the land an eerie grey glow, and as it does deep shadows emerge. It reminds her of the darkness she once embraced. It doesn’t matter now. She’s something else. Not even the light in her eyes will be enough to fix this place.  


Making a sound of her own she hisses out into the night, lifting her head to repeat her distaste to the stars above her. Her growl is small and raw, matching her mourning for this failure, extending herself out onto the land in radius she was not intending to reach.

A deep rumbling comes up behind her again. It’s low and makes her body crawl in ways she’s sure it shouldn’t. Her covering—what’s bound to her starts to drop off causing enough pain for her to call out into the night. As she continues with her grating screech, she closes her eyes to try to take the pain and is surprised by a new texture against her face. It feels rough like stone, as she’s come to realize, but thrums with a power unlike her own. It’s alive.

The sound of the billowing wind breezes through the land and pulls her with it, only to be pushed back and fully pressed against the hard substance that once gagged her. 

“Hush, little one,” a sound blew her out like leaves in the wind, carelessly; as if she were unnecessary just like every last star in the sky. “It can hear you.”

The warning makes her struggle, growling and grunting as she wiggles from its hold. Pebbles grind against each other, popping off as they do, causing absolute grief.

“Slow down,” the voice hummed through what sounds like his own pain. “You’re the first to fall in thousands of years. You will need your strength for the life ahead,” the voice sounds strained again, huffing as he breathes. 

Her light flickers inside her telling her to move towards it so she listens. Each step forward is unnerving, unlike that of what she’s already faced. Moving from her place against the broken ground underfoot, she finds a new, softer surface; ash. It’s painful to step on though. Instead of using the voice she found, the little star did her best to reach the sky.

Finding herself gradually lifting from where she stood, she notices how her eyes begin to shine brighter. Challenging as it may be to move with her odd body, she decides to follow the sound of the wind, associating it with a life, similar to her own. It needs something to keep going and she was going to find out what.

Another sigh startles her as she makes her way higher above it. Her appendages are fragile still, crumbling and falling from her as she moves. Light flickers beneath her layers, glowing softly as she finds the form that’s been speaking to her. Warily she realizes that the ash that burns her is coming from this creature and wonders if it feels it too. If it does than why doesn’t it move?

She’s sure this isn’t right. Her body, while weak, is moveable and not laying in a pile of her own decay. Her thoughts swim around her wondering why it wouldn’t get up. If the ash is so painful, why lay in it?

The voice calls to her again to take a good look. “This is what happens when you put too much faith in that of men.”

“What are you?” she whispers, her voice is soft and careful, wondering the same about herself.

“I’m Kylo. The First Obsidian dragon warrior to bring peace to this land,” he tries to sound proud but his breath gave way to a sour tone laced with his deep growl. His form that seemed to stretch across the great stony plain, rose to her level, close enough to see her without squinting.  


His face itself she notices is long and narrow, horns like hers are twisted behind his head jutting out from underneath a metallic bound crown she’s sure he didn’t need. He’s distinctly beautiful despite the molten gash through his face. It looks deep and long, baring awful ridges down within him. The glowing oranges and reds she’s known in the darkness are similar here, though, they don’t stretch far and wide. Instead, they sputter and drain from him burning awful tracks of grey ash as they go.

His body is large, jagged like the stony thing he silenced her with. A shiny metallic covering holds him down, or so it looks like from her angle. There are more, but she is unable to focus on what they are of what they do. All she can see is his pain.  


She wonders how it happened, and again if he was dying. Stars died all the time...how could he be any different?

“Ah, yes,” he grimaces as he spits fire at the chain harnesses holding his breastplate in place. “We do,” Kylo answers her thoughts. “I’m at the end of my life cycle. Maker willing,” he looks up at the night sky, “It is my last.”

His chest piece falls splintering the earth below them with such a force it throws up debris high enough that some pieces hit her. The smooth metal is thick for protection and stays upright giving her a place to perch. Her wings ache miserably, and the collected matter begins to disintegrate as she folds her wings against her body. 

“You,” he groans in pain. “You are like me. A dragon.” He lifts his body to show her as the morning star kisses the horizon. Light, unlike her own, flickers across his obsidian skin. It shows his battle scars from thousands of years over his hardened scales. Continuing to stand, he shows off his muscular legs, armored tail and large tattered wings.

Kylo watches as she stretches her body as he does, still standing on the breast piece, offering more to her by way of knowledge as his time is dwindling. He can feel it coming now. 

“Our kind are protectors. You decide what you fight for...” he coughs. Smoke rises from the corner of his lips when he does. “This is Mustafar. It’s the furthest from inhibitors I could find. It’s unforgiving and unkind, just like the monster I’ve been. I spent so many lifecycles trying to correct my inheritance, but none forget,” he whispers eyeing his oozing wound.

The sun is just a bit higher now painting the thin, lacy clouds above it in bright creams and golden light. There isn’t much time to tell her everything but nods his head off to the sun to follow the horizon. There she’ll find the land and sea that doesn’t look as destroyed as he feels.

“It’s coming. My end is near, littl—Rrrrreeehhh,” he growls as the suns glow burns his flesh. The best he can do to keep his strength is to lay back down. He speaks in tongues, growling as he fades. His essence swirls in clearly defined ribbons of red and black, winding around a center she cannot see. She does however hear his strain. He’s struggling. But what can she do? She’s so little compared to him. 

She darts around despite her own discomfort, willing his shed armor from the ground beneath them. Her size, however, is not enough to move any of the heavy pieces. Panicked she looks at Kylo whining in the burning sun, and then back to the golden orb. Harnessing the rage of losing a fellow protector, she clenches her claws around the gilded edge of another piece of armor. She dips her body down, breathes in a deep, purposeful breath, bares her teeth and roars.  


The sound she makes is earth shattering. She unknowingly calls upon an evil so great even Kylo’s weakened form lifts from the sight of the shadows racing over the land. A pale grey haze creeps over the horizon giving Kylo enough time to scold her.

“Maker! Do you have any idea what you’ve done?!” He pulls his head back, pressing his chin against the base of his neck, baring his teeth at her slowly. She watches him carefully as a bright white glow built behind them. 

It happens in an instant. The horizon goes completely black giving her one last chance to look upon him before he shoots his essence out to her waiting form. The moment he does, he names her making sure none other than her would receive his gift. 

“Rehy!”

All at once darkness blinds the land. His essence melds with hers. No sooner does it follow suit, relighting it in pulsating bands as it finds its natural glow. Kylo’s given her a fighting chance.  


Rehy sheds the melded pieces of the earth while she gains his strength. Pebbles fall carelessly in piles underneath her. Leaves, sticks and grass crumble to dust, revealing her celestial body. She’s taken his marks, adding them to her energy within her new form. Her crown takes on the spindled horns Kylo once had, as well as his armored legs. Her form is thinner, but in no way soft. Scales cover the remainder of her body and are curved to a point, reflecting the multiple broad strokes of color as they flit by, solidifying her change. 

One last burst of power before her transformation lights up the blackened sky warding off the dark forces from Mustafar temporarily. 

Rehy lunges forward, her colorless wings are now strong enough to push her forward easily and without pain. She takes stock of the items that should never have been on her in the first place were now below her. It’s then when she remembers to look for Kylo. 

And when she does… he’s gone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Present day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A HUGE THANK YOU to [kaybohls]() for this amazing mood board. For those that dont know this was originally a quickie project to match with an amount of workout steps that took off. There's at least 6-7 chapters in my outline. /facepalm to breaking my own rules... lol
> 
> I'll be adding more artwork towards the bottom in the notes section as I find the references to the jewelry Rey creates and wears, including the pendant that this is heavily based off of. Right now.... school drop off calls!
> 
> Finally, huge thank you to the wonderful support I've gotten in response to this concept from authors in TWD, and readers who have come to take a peak. I really appreciate your interest in this story <3 <3

[](https://ibb.co/wRSZSSc)

Crinkling leaves dragging their fragile tips across the path that lies before her. An oddly warm breeze blows past her just barely warming her before the cold sets in. Her brow furrows as she feels adrenaline course through her veins, voices whisper to her as the shadows take over the horizon rushing to her over this land. They come in the form of the damned with only one purpose, to snuff out her light. 

——Present Day——

Rey doesn’t know why she sleeps anymore. It seems like a waste of time. Her nightmares echo in her mind making it hard to keep her eyes shut nowadays. Visions, as she calls them, have been constant where she can’t tell what’s real or fake, and the more she tries to sleep, the closer they get. Rey’s only seen their faces a handful of times. The shadows move like demons, and have never been close enough to touch her, but they always lunge forward like they could.

Each time they do her subconscious startles her enough to wake her from even the deepest sleep. It’s as if she’s protecting herself.

It sounds ridiculous to her though, cursing at them as she moves to get up from her full-sized bed at this ungodly hour. During her nightmares she seemed to figure out a pattern. The leaves she’d hear in the beginning and end had a signature sound that seemed to call to her... and then cue the darkness. 

Stress, she reminds herself... it has to be stress. There’s no way those dreams had anything to do with her life in any other way. Her life has been a good one to a point. She has a family she belongs to, parents, grandparents on both sides and a brother she never thought she’d have. He even looked out for her and got into her world to a point. By the time they were teenagers they started playing Dungeons and Dragons too. Poe loves that she never questioned his interests, especially not with this game in particular. Why would she? If Poe could make her feel safe, why wouldn’t she?

He would take up interest in the items she would make at night, often sitting in and watching until she’d pass out at her work bench. A few times before he started doing that, she would sleep there complaining of stiffness and sometimes even the loss of hair she mistakenly burned off during the course of the night. As a thank you for the hardest nights, Rey would make him only the best props for his weekly campaigns putting even his friends who took the game exceptionally seriously to shame. 

Poe, while all for the pretend scene never once considered himself interested in going to a renaissance fair. When Rey suggested it, he openly mocked it calling the concept a glorified flea market only halting she lifted an eyebrow and explained the food situation. 

Food is Rey’s way to get Poe to do everything. Need to get a diver to go a total of four hours to a concert? Food solved that problem. Need someone to chaperone a shitty date? Cover for her when she snuck out? And when she almost burned down the shed liquefying the metal, she would purchase at the fairs she went to without him, he kept quiet because of the promise of food

Rey could cook or mustered up enough money to feed her brother whatever it was he wanted. The twelve-dollar latte he never knew existed until six months ago. Or the slices of triple chocolate cake she’d get from the bakery in town we’re good in their own right, but at the renaissance fair she recently got him to start participating in, they have the best turkey legs in the summer. It was almost as good as his mother’s recipe around the holidays and happened to explain it every time they went after that. Rey remembers the first time he agreed just for it. He was absolutely delighted that such a thing was possible being that it wasn’t Thanksgiving and all.

Their family always bought two turkeys for that reason alone. Poe loved the dark meat over white, and it was his only his until Rey joined their family that he found he was not alone in this. She remembers how they slapped the haunches of meat together as if it was a regular high five, they were known to give wherever they went. 

The thought made her smile.

This is nice she thinks but then rolls her eyes. 

Being awake in this reality is nice. 

Except when she closes her eyes everything was different. It was almost as if she was stuck between two different worlds. Her nightmares remained the same. Her fear amplified. She could feel years of pain as if she caused it and absolutely nothing made sense. 

Rey moves from her bed, fixing her loose-fitting white cotton pajama pants so they slid back down her ankle instead of hiked up her leg. Next to be adjusted is her yellow tank top, and finally her hair tie. She must have tugged it loose whipping her head back and forth in terror. 

She moves to her desk fiddling with her newly cast set of leaves. This design isn’t lost on her. They’re tiny curled bits of metals she collected from other jewelry she purchased at the fairs in the past. She’s linked them together forming another dragon of all things. She knows it’s strange, but it calls to her. Almost like she’s not herself in her dreams. Several times she’s felt a shift, a buzz of electricity courses through her veins when she had the nerve to face her fears and stare into darkness, but the element of the dragon still makes no sense to her. She hasn’t seen it. 

The leaves are always there though, and she doesn’t know why, but because of it they become the accents. Once each piece is set, they are soldered to their hook and eye posts making sure they can move as if they were fluttering in the wind. The last step is to connect it to the chain. 

She’s so focused in her work remembering the nightmare from before she doesn’t notice her brother at all. He’s smart enough these days to know not to surprise her when she’s got her tools out so he just watches. She’s gotten better at it, more focused. It’s as if she thinks these things can help her. 

Poe knew about her nightmares. They always came up as new campaigns. He would build their D&D quests around them even if they were only changing fractionally. 

“Another dragon trinket?” Poe lifts his eyebrow at Rey who is finishing the last detail on her necklace. 

She doesn’t look up, stopping would loses her place.

Rey only nods at this since it is painfully obvious. Her room is decorated in them. Some hang from form busts she uses to create them and their chains. Others have been put away, and some have been sewn into leather bound wrist wraps or ornate bodices she’s worn in the past. Each fulfilling a small bit of protection against whatever is calling her, but nothing has kept it away for more than hours at a time. 

This piece calls to her even while she’s awake... it means something... but what she isn’t sure. 

“Yes.”

“Are you almost ready?”

“Are you excited?”

“Well, it’s at a new place. Somewhere called,” Poe brings it up on his phone, “Taconda... Takodana State Park. I’ve never heard of it, which probably means there’s no parking...”

“And I know how much you love to walk...”

“That is not the problem,” Poe starts waving over himself with a simple expression of being more than capable for a walk. “The problem was it just rained and there weren’t any signs... the trail wasn’t even marked. What was going to stop us from going miles in the wrong direction?”

“You’re being dramatic.”

“Says the one with the nightmares...”

That was wrong. Poe could feel her glare even though she kept her focus down at her workstation. 

“Low blow, bro...”

“You know I didn’t mean it like that...”

“Yeah, yeah... Let me get dressed and then we can go,” she adds “asshole,” under her breath as she secures the last piece to the chain.

———

The ride to Takodana State Park takes them an hour and a half south of their usual stomping grounds. Rey’s brow furrows seeing a wall within the tree line. It looked as though this was someone’s private property. The closer they get to the grassy, sectioned off parking lot she hears something. It’s a breath among whispers lingering with an oddly familiarity. Out of habit, Rey reaches to pull up the button on the door to automatically roll her window up. Her fingers jump at the sound of her metal rings sliding across the plastic found there but nervously pull up several times.

Poe watches as carefully as he can while maneuvering the swampy field, they’ve been directed to park in. 

“So, this place? How did you hear about it?”

“One of the girls I know mentioned it.”

“So, this is more like a date for you then?”

“I was gonna tell you...”

“I really don’t need to know. Your business is your business...” she taps her ring on the side of the door several times before deciding to exit his Ford Taurus. This too is a dragon inspired hoop made out of filed copper for the texture alone. The others she wears religiously are filigree bands holding garnet and onyx stones her fingertips. 

Poe always assumed she picked those colors to keep her strong. Every fair she would find another piece or outfit that called to her was either black or red, only slightly tinted was acceptable too, but she seemed to know exactly why she was after like an entity was guiding her to it. The colors, Poe discovered, meant protection and passion which he thought was a bunch of nonsenses since they’re colors. 

“They don’t mean anything but maybe sleep for black and stop for red,” he remembers telling her.

Today she wore her usual fitted red dress with flared velvet sleeves and a long skirt that hung just low enough to reach the ankles of her low, calf wrapped sandals. Underneath she wore long bloomers stopping at her knee. While it was warm out and she probably didn’t need the extra length, Rey opted for it hoping to avoid another tick finding its way up her thigh. 

Around her neck is her newest creation, which shifts with her movement, finally finding its rightful place, hanging over her heart like armor. Maybe this time she would be protected. Maybe it would keep the shadows from coming...

Her hair is tied back in two braids that wind tightly into a low bun encased in, yet another filigree designed net of sorts keeping her hair locked tightly within it using a couple of long metal needles adorned with two raw onyx stones.

While Rey looked the part, Poe did not. He looked like he was straight out of the nineties with his ripped dark wash jeans, white shirt and weathered brown leather jacket. He got that thing years ago, and for the life of her, Rey couldn’t understand why he didn’t just get a black one. They were the same price, but Poe insisted on it saying if he went with black it would make him look stunted. Of course, she needed clarification, but his logic got her nowhere. The fact that his jacket would match his hair and in turn would make him look shorter was the dumbest thing she had ever heard. All he had to say was he liked the brown one better...

Regardless, there they were, parked and marching through the swampy field to first look for food and then for anything that called to her. 

———

Ben Solo had always had a hand in his family’s business, starting first with his uncle tanning and dying hides to ready them for just about any usage. Usually people would come through to purchase them at wholesale, using the leather for whatever their company sold. Ben however, had the foresight to hold onto scraps of pieces even when his uncle advised against it. He didn’t see the issue with his own curiosity, having the skills to create useable items with what he had. 

Ben picked up sewing while his grandmother was still alive. She quite enjoyed completing day to day clothing and for special occasions, even hand embroidered flowers on her daughter’s dresses which were all uniquely gorgeous. Ben believes that sewing skipped a generation though. His mother hadn’t had the patience to sit and stitch anything. The woman was always in the barn caring for her horses or herding cattle. It didn’t make much sense to her to make such fine clothing for their lifestyle. And so, Ben kept this to himself until he found a lucrative outlet: women. 

Jewelry, wraps, belts, and boots if he could find the right pieces to create such things was what he started with. As his confidence grew, he started making bags, satchels, cantinas, and eventually armor for the renaissance fairs that came through seasonally. 

Takodana State Park was a new location for him, but he’d been to so many over the years, he knew what would do well. Some pieces were traded with other shop keepers for items he felt he could lure customers in with, and because of it, this day wouldn’t be any different. 

Ben’s shop is made up of a few tables, and a hanging blue velvet curtain that claims the space around him. Forms hold armor for both men and women on either side of his “u” shaped lot. Dyed and cured items he’s grown up creating fill the rest of the space around him too. 

Today there’s been a mixed interest which is different for him, selling out of belts, satchels, and a new favorite, a booze clip he calls it, but labels as a potion pocket. It’s roughly the size of a small wallet, and holds up to a six-ounce container, which he’ll remember to make more of being they’re the least time consuming. 

By the time it’s midday and the sun has disappeared behind the clouds again when is when sees a girl who seems to stand out from the rest while she mills about in other shops. He watches as she picks up a piece of jewelry to study it as if she’s looking for into its history. It’s odd, he thinks, to see such scrutiny applied to pieces here. Most of the women that had been by were looking for a meaningless stone, large and lustrous to adorn their finger or hang from their wrists, but this girl would pick up the pieces shops have been trying to get rid of for seasons as if they were the finest gilded pieces among the garbage there. It wasn’t to say it was garbage per se, but it was certainly strange to see her fawn over such uninspired pieces. 

Ben picks up another box of leather bands he meant to replenish what he had sold just to lose her. As much as his height should have helped him, searching the crowd seems nearly impossible. She’s gone, Ben repeats it to himself, she’s gone...

———-

A shift in the breeze captures her attention. The day had been hot, and the humidity felt as though it was pressing her down into the soft ground below her feet, so the breeze is welcomed. It first started warm and then cool like a storm was coming.

Gently, Rey puts the bangle back on the display stand, the artisan still speaks but she doesn’t hear a breath of it. Instead she follows the swirl of air tingling around her neck, tickling her face with the loose tendrils shaping her just so. It moves around and over her like a ribbon tying a precious gift. 

This is no breeze she thinks. 

This is something else.

Rey turns to follow as it moves past her, staying within the coolness as if she’s in a waiting path. Her brow furrows trying, of all things, to remember if this was a part of her dreams or steps into her nightmares. Leaves crinkle behind her falling over a small pile of themselves. Rey can’t control the way her body responds to her fear, heaving as she stands rooted to the ground. Panic blossoms in her heart, racing as it always had when she had heard that soft sound.

Rey weave’s through the crowd, hurrying to get past by any means necessary when she hears the whisper of what she thinks might be a name. 

“Kylo.”

She’s hearing things, Rey tells herself. No one said that. She hears the sounds of merriment, clashing of swords and horses neighing in the distance. There’s music and constant movement all around her. No one whispered a name to her. No one was that close to her... not even her brother. He was off on his own adventure with that girl he mentioned.

Rey is alone, left to her own devices to search through the overcast daylight for the sound as if it were a person. In her dream whatever chased her never whispered. It never sounded like a name, and even then, the whisper sounded more taunting, teasing her as she stepped away from the strange path. 

It leads her back, deep within the crowd to a darkly colored cloth. Her heartbeat hammers in her ears being the only color she remembers seeing before the return of the eternal darkness brought to her by those hell beasts. And yet she’s still drawn to it. Closer and closer until she reaches the item calling her. 

Of all things, it’s a dragon pendant, one she’s never seen. The metal clearly stands apart from itself, suspending circular gem that could have been taken as a jeweled heart set off to the side. What kind of stone? She’s not sure, but it had both of her usual colors within it, and decided she needs him.

Rey reaches out her hand to touch it, her fingers shake while she does as if it were forbidden. The moment she does, a roar of a voice sounds in her ear making her jump. It’s beast like in nature but somehow sounds as if a man has yelled through it too. 

“What have you done?!” 

Her quick movement startles Ben. 

She’s here... she came back... though his jubilation is short lived when she asks about the pendant, not once looking at anything else in his shop.

Girls he thinks. What is it with them? They can’t possibly understand what goes into his craft. Angered by this he spouts, “It’s not for sale.”

He looks away for a quick second then back to her, now pinning her with his stare. She looks around carefully as if someone would stop her from picking the item up. Ben’s sure she’s thinking of shoplifting...at a renaissance fair... regardless of how dumb it sounds he can’t help but challenge her. 

The whispers grow louder between her ears until she finally picks up the pendant. Once she does the piece grows hot in her hand, burning it as it rests there.

With no other choice, she drops the pendant in shock, her flesh raised in scorching red burns, but that’s the last of her worries. 

“Hey!” Ben seems to yell this at the same time the strange bestial roar sounds again, sending her into a panic. “You have to pay for that!”

Ben grabs the hand that had been branded making her scream. 

A woman’s scream is known to turn heads usually, but something was off here. No one turned. No one cared... and the cold breeze that beckoned her in the first-place swirled low around her feet.

“Let go of my hand!” She bares her teeth, growling at the shop keeper in question.  
Without missing a beat, Ben reminds her that she shouldn’t steal the item if she didn’t want any attention. “You need to pay for that! Or put it back!”

“I did,” she growls not bothering to specify what she means by it. 

Ben however doesn’t let go, squeezing only a fraction more when she lifts her gaze from his large hands, knuckles white from the force he’s using to keep her there.

“I didn’t take your things! Now, let me go!”  
Something inside her broke, her challenge to the new man was unlike one she’d ever given. It burned brightly awakening her fighting spirit. She stares at him with the same ferocity, one that looks through his soul. His grip on her loosens ever so slightly when he sees a red reflective light flutter over the deep green of her irises. 

He can feel his mouth start to drop in pure horror. It’s not what he saw. It’s not, he tries to tell himself. Animals do that, and, and people, they... they do that in photos... not, not in broad daylight. This thing he was holding isn’t some girl, but if she wasn’t what she portrayed, then what is she?

There’s nothing. Not a thing off putting from her aside from that color he thought he saw. Ben feels her yank her hand from his hold with not another word uttered as she turns to leave. 

Each step she takes in the other direction sends tremors through him. What was so important about that trinket? Why did she need it? Why... wait, he thinks about their confrontation and then looked for the piece itself. Unable to find it, he assumes the girl still has it. Leaving his shop and his goods on display here is the best way to be stolen from, but what choice did he have? He had to go find her. That thing, whatever it was, needed to be returned to the rightful owner and it most certainly wasn’t either of them. 

Ben stalks off in her direction completely missing the burnt grass holding the same design under his feet.

———-

The only relief Rey could find for her hand were on the cool boulders that acted as a fence of sorts keeping cars from parking much further in the grounds. Only able to stretch her hand open far enough to let her fingers hang forward made her look like she was leaving the scene with more than she had. Instead her hand naturally tries to defend her wound from any more pain. It refused to do much more than that and is too hard to think about at the moment. Instead she wonders where Poe’s car is, and then again if she really wants to know. There was no way she would run back to it if he mentioned coming with her for a girl. For all she knew he already had her in the backseat and bleh—Rey has no interest in ever having to break that up. 

Nope. 

She doesn’t need to see him like that, Rey covers her face for good measure as if she can see the whole thing playing out. 

But what if he isn’t and they couldn’t just retreat from this place? It suddenly became the only reason she went looking for the car. Rey walked the entire way around the sparsely used lot looking for Poe’s crappy Taurus, but never finds it. 

“Well isn’t that just great?” she mutters leaning against another boulder. “This place gives me the creeps and now even you’re gone Poe,” Rey says to no one.

She calms her screaming hand on the stony surface below her looking off into the distance while she claims relief here. A storm of questions build up within her, wondering why the metal could even cause such a reaction. Why did the breeze guide her around? What was that path she didn’t take? Who made that sound? And the leaves...Why on earth were their antiqued leaves making the same unbearable sounds as they had in her dreams?

None of this made sense...and then... who was he? 

Takodana State Park was open to everyone Poe informed her on the way down. It didn’t matter if they were dressed for the fair or if patrons were just passing through for other trails or experiences. Several times she had seen people park with canoes in other fairs held elsewhere, but not here... not today. 

The man though... what was it about him that made her turn into such a beast, growling of all things? That’s what animals do. 

“I am not an animal...” she whispers to herself bringing her palm back up to her face for inspection.

“Then why did you act like one?” a baritone voice startles her from her focus. 

“I...” Rey loses her nerve to speak to the man, only expecting another fight. All she wanted was to purchase the pendant, and now look where it got her. Stalked by an exceptionally handsome stranger, but stalked is the detail she hangs on. Not to mention, burned and scared of a bunch of trees. 

“That pendant,” the man reaches out his hand towards her, “return it.”

“I don’t have it.”

“I saw you.”

“Then you would know, wouldn’t you?” she spat. 

He frowns at this adding, “You clearly have it...open your hand, thief.”

Thief? 

Thief...

He did not just call her a thief... 

“Excuse you?”

His hand stays unmoving but still stretched out to her. She wonders just how many people he’s accused of stealing from him in the past if she was being targeted as one.

“You heard me.”

“Hmm,” Rey looks over his shoulder and around the lot for any way to escape or better still anyone to scream for, but her nerve overrides her common sense. “Clearly, you didn’t hear me. Or weren’t listening. Which is it? Too good to admit you’re wrong?”

It’s his turn to ask for clarification. 

“I didn’t stutter, did I?” 

The man before her pulled in his outstretched fingers into a tight fist. His short fingernails bit through the callouses in his palms as he tries bottling up his frustration. This isn’t going anywhere, he thinks, asking for her to open her hand once more.

“No.”

“No?”

“Yeah, that’s the word I used. Do you know it?”

“Are you always this much of a brat?”

“That’s the adjective you came up with?”

“What?”

“You chose brat over—oh, never mind.”

“No tell me. Over what? What did you expect me to call a complete stranger?” his tone waivers. 

“I’m sure you could think of a few things,” Rey snorts. She looks away from him down to the stone. “You did just openly called me a thief.”

“Are you?”

Rey rolls her eyes at him.

“Well?”

“No! I’ve never stolen even a scrap of food when I’d need it. I’ve always worked for everything, you ass.”

Ben laughs. He’s been called this by enough people, even his family, and it’s never been as inviting as when this girl had called him one. He does his best to get himself under control and back on task. The pendant...where it is... and why she won’t just open her hand to him at least.

“Sorry,” he mumbles.

“A little louder for the people in the back,” she thumbs with her uninjured hand to herself that sat a handful of feet further from him. 

Ben groans, complying with her request for a louder apology. “I’m sorry,” he says, remembering not to add the “Okay?” at the end of his attempt to connect with this girl. He thanks his mother inwardly for the constant reminders of where his sass could land him when she looks up at him in surprise. 

“Why didn’t you believe me?” Rey asks softly. 

“You can’t honestly tell me what you were doing was normal. I’ve never seen anyone reach out to touch jewelry as simple as that like it was alive.” Ben catches himself chuckling and opts to stop when their eyes meet. The last time her eyes shown what he could only suppose was possibly a reflection of sorts coming off of the charms of a passerby, he now knew was all her own doing. 

It was a warning. 

Or at least he took it as one.

She didn’t have to say anything. A bend in her brow and an odd look later her eyes would flash brightly with a wordless challenge. 

“Right,” Ben shifts uncomfortably in her stare, dropping his eyes completely. “What happened when you touched it?”

Rey opens her hand to herself, studying it as she has. He doesn’t expect her to speak— or at least not to him about it, but then she does. 

“It burned me. Like in fairytales I suppose. But it... there’s no way I dreamed this. It’s... its awakened something inside of me,” she says leaving out what it’s doing to her specifically, “and now I’m afraid...And you’ve been no help. You didn’t even listen back there.” Ben makes no movements to accept these things, gaining him yet another glare. “Are you even listening to me?”

Ben makes no sound but moves forward towards her. Questions swirl around in his mind all leading back to her potentially being a witch. Wouldn’t that be something? She didn’t look like someone that was hyper focused on such a thing. Just dragons, judging by her accessories, if they had a part in magic, he was unaware of it. It could possibly justify what he’s been seeing though, couldn’t it? 

He snatches her wrist, turning her palm to him to study the burn itself. At least now she doesn’t pull away.

Shock can’t possibly express what he’s witnessing. The mark is alive. Scarred, yes, but the faintest golden light moves within her hand keeping her palm from cooling completely.

“Has it been doing this the whole time?”

Rey’s voice shakes when she asks, “Doing what?”

Ben looks back up from her palm his worry for her is apparent being the same one Poe gives her after her nightmares.

“Hey... what did you see? What’s wrong with me?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Other pieces that were inspirations to this fic: 
> 
>  
> 
> [](https://ibb.co/1zwt3ZB)  
> 
> 
> The necklace is looseley based on this design:  
> [](https://ibb.co/nDKvmtL)  
> 
> 
> and the pendant is based on this:
> 
>  
> 
> [](https://ibb.co/bP1CrFg)  
> 


	3. Chapter 3

Ben motions for her to get up and follow him, saying not much more than a couple of phrases that made no sense to her. Was he mad? Rey, keen to all emotion as she was, did not think the man was particularly angry… crazy on the other hand? Yes. Absolutely. It was in the way he took her hand. The way his eye seemed to follow an imaginary line. Why do the insane have to be gorgeous, she mutters to herself following the strange man leading her back into the woods. It’s not like she really had a choice in the matter. Poe left and so did a lot of the crowd which was honestly strange of a renaissance fair. In all of the ones she had ever been to, many ran far into the night enjoying bonfires at multiple sites, food and drink.

Their surroundings, she’s noticed, have changed. The rock wall she noticed since arriving was now gone. Nowhere to be found. Nothing so long or old could have been taken down that fast, her rational thought kicks into gear. Every footstep she took behind this man had her noticing something else. Little changes, both in the air and around her in the wood. A shallow fog hung just over the tall grass valley as if they were approaching a new day by leaving the shadows there. Its canopy gave way to thin grey swirling clouds which layered chaotically over the other shifting in different directions.

What Rey found exceptionally interesting was that her guide seemed to pay little attention to. It’s then when she realizes she doesn’t know his name, wondering if she should even ask. Thinking better of it, she keeps her mouth closed. While he expressed enough interest to keep her with him, guiding her back to where his table had been set up no doubt, it doesn’t honestly mean that she should drop her guard and let him in. Sure, he seems to be overly concerned about her hand, and the burn is quite magical in the way that it keeps moving and won’t actually cool at all, but that doesn’t mean she can trust him. He as the one who ran after her accusing her of stealing.

No, she doesn’t need to bend or show any weakness when it arises. Instead Rey keeps herself focused, her senses on high alert as anything could come next.

She hears his footfalls change, the crunch in the brush, heavier, his pace seems to race into the empty untouched valley. There’s nothing there. Nothing but them and a valley that stretches out as far as the eye can see lined by forests much like the one, they passed through to get here.

“You!” The man shouts at her, pointing his finger accusingly in her face. “You did this, didn’t you?” 

Rey steps back, threatened by the man before her, following him was a bad idea, she knows this now. He was a loose cannon before and is now. A fleeting thought passes through her that she would have been safer if she stayed in the parking lot passes like an empty promise. Being that she was sure she would be dealing with this more so than she could take herself, Rey chooses to ignore him.

Her palm pulses as she does, passing him into the emptiness decorated by a life he can’t see. There’s something there with them. She can feel it. But where? Her concern hidden among the layers of her heart, Rey keeps moving, wandering through the new land. She wants to know it down to the last blade of grass.

How strange is this place, one that can change in a whim, she muses. Rey wonders if there’s any way she could be of more help here even though the man had been nothing short of a thorn in her side. He had nothing to give, really, when she thinks about it, only accusations overall. She shakes her head, pressing on without him.

“Where do you think you’re going?” she hears him call after her.

Rey really has no idea. She’s just moving forward into the tall grass, turning ever so slightly to look behind them.

The man she’s with takes it as he’s gotten her attention, waving his hand at her and cursing about her abilities. He’d seen the way her eyes flashed red when she challenged him back, but this wasn’t that. He watched how her eyes traveled behind him to find a wall of trees which weren’t there before.

The darkness there has her swallow. She’d seen something like this in her dreams. The wall of darkness comes to mind and her face must show it.

A cool sweep of dread worries her features, freezing her in place as she studies it. It looks as though death and decay is peeling layers of life down into its shadowy hull. The moment the man notices where she’s looking, Rey has already turned away, the heavy material of her dress flowing to the side of her in the process.

“Nothing good will come of this place,” she quietly assesses.

The man’s footsteps seem to trail away from hers to the point where she doesn’t hear him anymore. All that’s around her are her own sounds, crunching grass underfoot, the metal chime of her necklace ringing together, the godawful sound of hunger in her belly. It was certainly of the last two things she needed, hunger and finding relief. Both could wait since she still had to get her bearings on this strange new place. Wildlife wasn’t present yet, not even birds flew overhead, ambiance silenced by the wall of darkness had certainly been an oddity, and yet nothing seemed to stand out to her yet in terms of food, so Rey kept going.

The valley stretches as far as the eye could see, rolling through sage fields and on. Giving in to the fact that she might not know what fell beyond the fog, she decided not to speculate. Maybe there was an option of survival. She just had to look for it. 

____She left. The girl left. She must know then, he thinks. She must have known what she did…

Ben, still staring curiously into the emptiness begins to wonder what she is. The thought of her being a witch slowly fades, mostly because they aren’t real. Witches, sorcerers, magic beings were folktales made to mystify children into believing the world could be saved, that they are all more than human. Special… but Ben knew the truth. They weren’t real. None of this, not even the woods here could make him change his mind.

It is all just some strange trick she was pulling.

“Hey,” Ben calls over his shoulder, turning all the way around to make sure she hadn’t slipped by him in any way.

But she hadn’t.

She left a trail he could follow matted down by her choice wardrobe and steady steps. He wonders how she could be so calm in such a time like this. Their world changed from everything they thought they knew to nothing in the blink of an eye. Well, nothing isn’t exactly correct. Nothing would suggest they were in a barren wasteland. Instead, they’re in a land between luscious and decrepit, as if this space itself is dying to be saved.

Ben finds himself following her trail for what feels like miles, each step more cumbersome than the last when he finds himself at the edge of a steep cliff. His eye carefully sweeps the land below him, his eyes settling on the woman in question holding what looked like weighty stones and making her way back to the face of the cliff itself. While he’s deep in thought, trying to figure out why she has the stones, he catches her eye. Standing like a fool at the top of the wall, it dawns on him that she’s already made it down there and is looking to make camp in what could be the safest place rather than out in the middle of the field. The best he can do is offer her a tight-lipped nod and a blink in her direction.

There are no rewards with his none too obvious complement. Instead she gives him a warning stare rolls her eyes and continues along in her task.

Ben knows he needs to traverse down the fifty-foot drop… but how? How did she get down it? Was there a hill on either side? He treks off in one direction and then the other confirming there was no safe way down, then it occurs to him that her foraging would have shown him the way. There was none of that. The grass remained tall all around their paths, which had to have meant the girl accepted her path and didn’t fight it.

He feels a wave of stupidity, then guilt flush over him. He really didn’t have the authority to chase her down or accuse her of creating this alternate universe. She most clearly didn’t create it. Or deserve that. Instead she simply accepted it. Unlike the fool he’d been.

Another pass at the cliff’s edge has him finding a torn sash and metal pick, he assumes is from her hair jammed into a tree stump he missed at his first pass.

His features soften at this.

Knowing he won’t safely descend with these tools based on the thickness of his form alone, he sees it as a truce. She didn’t have to reach out to him. He was being an ass all day and yet, here she is giving away her secrets.

____Rey says nothing, placing the stones around the rocky terrain. If he couldn’t figure out that her hair piece was giving him the answers he needed to descend, that was his problem. She was still trying to figure out how to set up camp starting with a safely dug up fire pit and eventually a covered shelter in the event that it was going to rain, she really didn’t want to sit in it.

Once or twice she looked up at the guy wanting to tell him how but feeling the resentment he had to her with every pass he made. His large wingspan had been more capable than hers was anyways making short work of the hardest part. It didn’t exactly help that she was entirely caught up in watching his form make it down the rough surface. Her eyes roved over his shoulders, resting on his arms. Each time he moved them she’d find the carved muscles of his torso lead her own the sweat drenched fabric of his shirt which clung to him in all the right ways. Her vision drifted south watching him find his footholds, success evident in his tensing thighs, she found it easier to breathe when he connected with each, making a safe landing from the wall itself.

A wave of relief seemed to flush over her skin when he turns to her.

Where did that come from, she wonders. Her eyes dart around the ground, then back up at his, feeling strange now in his presence. All of the air in her lungs leaves her body at once when he steps closer, offering her hair piece back. Just before Rey would have been just fine if the world opened up and happened to swallow him whole, but now she’s not sure. He looks at her with some justifiable awe, like he can’t believe she’d done the same.

“Thanks for pointing me in the right direction,” if he means it as a pun or silly in any way, she’s not sure. He seems to be genuinely sincere, cautious even, when he extends her item back to her.

“What’s your name?” Rey asks curiously.

A dumbfounded look crosses his brow. It’s as if he’s trying to remember himself, remember their interactions up until now. Did he not introduce himself?

The girl waits patiently, teetering in the brink of care and concern.

“It’s fine,” she says accepting his silence.

His voice catches in his throat the way she looks away from him. She’s moved away, putting enough distance between the two of them he wonders where she’s gone.

“Ben,” he whispers to no one.

——-

Light in the grey skies darken suggesting night is coming. Rey, having little patience for the man’s decisions to ignore her, finds herself leaving again.

Her sigh must have been heard by this place for the breeze picks up, swirling softly beneath her hand, then again through her hair like enchanted ribbons, calling her away from there. The air is cool, dare she think, soft, as it flutters by her with what she thinks is a message. Rey’s eyes lower, her eyelashes swearing downward, she focuses all she can into its direction.

She can hear the tapping of the blades of grass besides her in its wake, as well as her silent prayer that it returns to her. Adjusting her stance, she lends an ear towards the direction it had left in, only to swirl around her again releasing a name on the breath of a whisper.

“Khyloh,” the breeze taunts.

Again she advances on it, her brow furrows, straining herself to hear it more clearly, but it’s gone leaving her to wonder why.

“Wait!” she whispers her demand.

“Ben,” the man’s voice rang out loud but uncertain. He clears his throat a little tougher than he needs, clearing the nerves he feels in this space as well. “My name’s Ben.”

Rey turns slowly, the echo of the name she’s looking for dies slowly she in the wind when she repeats the man’s name behind her.

“Right, I’m Ben,” he reaches for her, asking, “And you are?”

Rey’s lips remain open but feel like they’ve been wired shut.

What was that? she wonders.

Ben gives her the same look of disappointment she gave him when she doesn’t respond. It’s only when she notices his hand stretched out to her, despite the sticks and brush he’s gathered from the land in the other that helps her see him in that moment that she realizes he’s trying to help.

The man’s hand starts to drop before her as her gaze did to him, but before it manages to fall completely to his side, she puts her hand in it.

“I’m Rey,” she says, her eyes just as wide as his.

“I’m sorry about before.”

She nods at this accepting his apology, following him back to camp.

“How’s your hand?” Ben asks, sounding truly concerned.

“Still hot,” she frowns. “Back there, out of the woods, when you looked at my hand... what did you see?”

Ben’s breath catches in his throat not sure of what to say. Does he tell her and have her laugh in his face? Or does he stay silent, severing the connection they’ve only just made?

“Ben?”

Her voice is just as soft as when she asked for his name to begin with. He can almost sense her getting ready to let go when he starts to speak.

“I saw light.”

“Light? What do you mean you saw light?” She looks at her own palm finding nothing but the searing red burn.

“Has it cooled at all?” he asks.

Rey swallows her pride, letting her concern worry her face, moistening her eyes. It hadn’t at all.

“Climbing down the face of the cliff and just now when the breeze passed, we’re the only times I felt relief,” she shakes her head. “But only briefly.”

“I can’t honestly tell you I know what it is,” Ben pauses. “Or how to help you. But I’d feel better if we stayed together here. We don’t know what’s out there and I can’t —wouldn’t be able to protect you if you wandered off”

“Protect me?”

“We’re out in the wilderness, Rey. There’s no telling what’s out here...”

“Like the cliff?”

“Yes, exactly like the cliff.”

Rey nods even though she’s not sure if staying will make a difference. So far she’s been alone even in his presence, how would this journey differ in it?

“Like I said, we don’t know what’s here,” he says, making it back to the start of her campfire.

Rey watches him stack what he has in the ditch she dug. She turns to scan the land again looking for anything they can use to burn through the night.

“Ben?” Rey cocks her head to the side, watching as the breeze swirls over the land again. “Do you think you could dig that ditch a little deeper? Or find something to help me split this?”

“What? Split what?” Ben’s eyes widen at the sight of fallen logs but where did they come from? He watches her form move towards them cautiously. 

Reaching them she finds that the wood has been warn, rotting for some time. How much time, she isn’t sure but upon inspection, even with the darkness approaching, she makes out what looks like twine indentations. 

What is this? She wonders. 

Pushing at one simultaneously breaks one from the other, shattering the old wood into useable pieces. By the time Ben makes it over to her, which isn’t long at all, he gapes at the hole moving them has left. Was this a door? Is it a trap? The two look at each other seemingly wondering the same thing. Neither needing to put it into words, their curiosity peaking as the moonlight seems to light their way guiding them into the new space. 

Rey, who takes a tentative step closer, is caught by Ben who assumes the position, to go first. Shrugging through her concern, he gets himself ready to climb down when he sees bright yellow glowing eyes making their way through the grass. Ben turns quickly to Rey, grabbing her burning palm to pull her to him.

The effort has her shrieking in pain, a sound so loud and awful it roars through the night, scaring the creatures who lurked there away. Her body heaves with each breath she takes once he lets go, crying as if the burn took over her body as a whole. 

Ben’s heart contracts at the sight of this. He had no idea she had been in so much pain or that she’d be if she held her tightly. She did take his hand with that same one and had no reaction to him. Weighing the facts, it was her to take him, not the other way around. Strange. 

“I’m sorry! I didn’t know,” he promises. 

Having no idea what she’d just experienced, she shakes her head accepting this. Her body still convulses as the pain subsides. Of course, he doesn’t know that would happen. She didn’t know that would happen. How could she place blame such as that for an honest mistake?

“I know,” she replies, her voice stutters in response. “Take me back?” 

Ben wonders if by giving him permission to help her, she would suffer a lesser fate, but fear grips him. 

“No,” he answers her. 

“No?” she sighs her question before falling into a heap in the grass. 

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he answers tentatively. “Give me your hand,” he tries again, “touch me first, so that I know you won’t do that again. Show me its alright to help you.” Ben kneels beside her waiting for a response, anything… and then feels the slightest touch come across his hand. 

She isn’t crying in pain or ready to implode, he thinks. These are good signs, aren’t they?

He makes to reach one arm under her arms, the other under her knees, bracing him to his chest before he stands with her. In the pale moonlight Ben is able to make it back to the camp site with no issues. No surprises, not even a stone in his path to roll his ankle on. By the time he makes it back with her, she’s made an effort to stand. Ben keeps her close, however, asking her to stay seated until her strength returns.

“I’ve never seen anyone do that before. You may do best to keep yourself together here until I return with the firewood.”

The best Rey can do is nod and remind him of the hole. 

“Please be safe. Remember the hole…”

At Ben’s nod, which felt more like a thankful promise, she found herself more at ease as he moved through the darkness. Her mind rushes back through the day remembering the darkness as if she was calling out to it. Her nightmares felt as if they were perched right above her on the cliff, waiting. What would she do to rid herself of them? How could she tell Ben about them? Being in this weird place, whether it was a wrinkle in reality or if they had transcended into another world, Rey found it too exhausting to bring up, especially now.

Deep in thought, Rey’s concerns keep her tucked away from this reality. Unaware of Ben’s returns and departures back into the night until he returns for the last time, sitting close to her while he starts the fire. 

“So, I was thinking, maybe tomorrow we check out that hole. Maybe it’s a well or something,” he shrugs, “fresh water might be nice since we haven’t found a body of water yet. Maybe…”

Rey shakes her head, “I don’t think it’s a well, Ben,” she replies with wide eyes. 

“What?” In her silence he finds himself asking why she would say that.

“It looks familiar—like a stronghold.”

“Familiar?” he asks again. “What do you mean familiar? Have you been here before?”


	4. Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Rey?” A voice behind her calls from far beyond the pit. If that was Ben, then what’s coming for her? Rey makes her way back into the open landscape, the sun filtering through their accident, ending the terror with one message.  
>    
> Light conquers all.

Rey isn’t sure what to say or not say. Instead she starts to speak as the warm orange glow of the fire begins to spread.

“For as long as I can remember, I’ve gotten nightmares. Most of the time they’re glimpses into a past I can’t remember. Voices, a landscape, unlike this one, but certainly desolate,” she pauses, feeling the weight of his stare on her. It’s as if he’s trying to look through her instead of listening. Rey knows she sounds weird for even bringing it up, but what’s the truth of this place without the truth of her life? Rey steadies herself once more and continues, “I can feel more than I see... and there’s a constant need to run being the theme of all of them. I don’t know this place, but I have a strange feeling deep in my gut that place over there, isn’t a well. It may not be a stronghold either, but we have to be careful in there regardless.”

Ben nods at this wondering if any of it could be true. If it is a base of sorts, why is it underground? What business did it have being buried? Was it buried? He looks up at the cliff wondering if the ground opened up and swallowed half of the land. Was it more than this? More than what he could see? The landscape had certainly regrown if that was the case but does that then mean that there are far more secrets underground?

His mind races as the fire engulfs the pile in the pit. Ben, being wise enough, gathered the entire amount of wood to make certain that he could keep them warm throughout the night, even if it meant he had to stay awake for most of it, periodically adding another wedge to the fire until morning. 

While he assessed the fire as well as keeping her warm, Ben notices a wave of sorts pushing a strange need to look out for this woman. Yes, it had been there before, the moment he had seen the burn to be exact, but now everything else began to take shape. Certainly not a shape he knew but indefinitely a shape which makes him feel like his presence is absolutely necessary.

It seems weird. The pull to this strange woman, but it’s there, ever growing. Ben shifts uncomfortably next to her, sure to ask her again if it’s alright before sitting close enough next to her to briefly touch shoulders.

Rey doesn’t move away, instead dips her head to the side, closing her eyes as she does.

“Thank you,” she says, he doesn’t know what she’s thanking him for, however, but he doesn’t ask. Instead, he does his best to look for anything to help him change the subject.

Several times he finds himself wanting to go back to asking about her hand, but the everlasting impression of the way the land changed when he took it before kept biting back at him, as if it were alive. Instead, he accepts where her head rests on him. While her eyes are closed, he watches her lips part, he listens to the way she mumbles in her sleep but it’s nothing he can truly understand which in turn lulls him to sleep too.

Despite the cold rock at their back and the cool night air, the pair stays warm together. When they wake, it’s softly, unlike the resistance they’ve felt with each other just yesterday. Before the crack of dawn, Ben finds his arms wrapped around her loosely, her own mirroring his. Her breathing is labored while here hands clutch at both the back and front of him. The most he can make out of it is that it’s a nightmare she claimed to have regularly. It’s then when his own panic sets in. What if she blows him to bits with that surge of energy? He scrambles to get a way, cradling her head looking to set her down carefully to make sure she doesn’t wake up with a start.

The moment he puts her down, day breaks on the horizon. The light beams upward into the sky reaching the thin, lacy, wisps of clouds left from the churning storm that once was. Water crystals within them bend the light, showing brilliantly glowing golden yellows and glittering flecks of white making somewhat of a living painting. Ben rolls his eyes at himself, of course it’s a live, they’re out in nature. The time he takes watching it, Ben doesn’t, however, notice the dew on the grass doing the very same.

It’s only when Rey moves behind him that he realizes the fog has since burned off, the sun has climbed higher than the trees on the horizon, just enough to mirror the sky in what they assume to be a lake.

“Is that...?” Rey trails.

“It looks like it,” Ben looks over his shoulder at Rey who is getting up. “Might be a good idea to check it out. See if it has something we can fish out if there.”

“Right after we take a look in the pit, right?” motioning him over to the right.

“You still want to go there even though the potential of food is right before us?” Ben rakes his fingers through his hair in disbelief.

“What do you expect us to catch fish with, Ben? Our hands? Like bears?” she finds herself challenging him.

That’s not what he meant. Maybe they could find more sticks around the area like they’d found the logs. Although, the logs were there for years, Ben thinks, the sticks he assumes are there might not be.

“Fine,” he motions for her to follow.

The two of them make their way to the pit of sorts. It’s still only as large as it was last night. The evidence of this makes it a little easier for Ben to breathe. He’s never liked being in closed spaces, not like this or otherwise. Tight spaces were for cats and small children that acted like cats. They weren’t for a man of his size and he felt the need to remind himself of this on every step towards the darkened hole.

To his surprise his first step in is met with a thud. There was a landing made of wood much like what they pulled away to burn. With more than half of him still showing, he decides to get her to clear the area.

“I don’t want you to fall,” he waves his hand at her, trying to back her up. Ben does everything in his power to break up the space around him, taking chunks off, piece by piece.

When he does, the ground vibrates at every pass of his destruction. Her breathing accelerates, the sound is just like it was when shadows would make their advances in her. Something deep within her belly is needing him to stop!

No more movement! No more—“

Heavy thuds can be heard just beneath her feet. They sound horrendously like boulders crashing behind her, crippling a world beneath them. Her heart lurches with the prospect of killing someone here.

“Ben!” she shouts. “STOP!”

The sound of her terror rips through him as he damages yet another layer causing the ground to shift. He sees the ground dip, throwing her off center, her feet separate to find anything sturdy. There’s nothing, nowhere to turn. Ben finds himself trying to keep himself steady in the wake of all of this, his anxiety crashes over him as she slips from view, being pulled down through what he can only assume is a sink hole.

“Rey!” he roars.

This is his fault. It’s all his fault! All of it. The last thing he sees is the scorched mark on her hand as she waves it frantically above her.

“Be—“

It’s the last thing he hears from her. Her terror is evident. Ben shook in place. This world swallowed her up, she’s gone! His ears ring knowing this place is talking about him, his stupidity. And yet here he still stands. Stands, he thinks. He’s on top of something. Ben’s brow furrows at the sight of this. To him it looks like a very tall old building of sorts. Nothing decorative that could explain the time period he observes, but a building nonetheless. 

The girl was right. 

This is not a well.

——

The mudslide, if she could call it that, ended just as quickly as it started, or so it felt. It had pushed her as far as the lip of the lake, her hand which she stretched out to him stayed just high enough to keep an anchor to the outside world. What a terrifying thought it would have been to wake up without at least a glimmer of hope. Unlike the earth that trapped her legs, the tumbled ground rolled just so stoping centimeters away from her face. It exposed the grass, while mangled in itself giving her just enough room to breathe. It’s as if it was stopped to save her. 

But why?

Figuring there isn’t time to wonder, Rey presses on. It’s time to break through. Time to move. It takes her a moment to assess her damages, which she thankfully has none she can feel at least. Breaking through the surface she finds a significant amount of her dress in disarray. A sleeve is torn, the rest muddied, clumps of which cake her skin and paint her face. Her hair as disheveled as it was from sleeping, now looks as though she’d been caught in a terrific windstorm. Not that it’s important. None of it really was. The only thing she could think about was finding Ben. If he suffered to the same fate she would certainly feel to blame. It was her fault. She suggested going. He did dig it out, she thinks, and maybe that wasn’t necessary, but it still happened, and now it’s time to search for him.

Clumps of torn land roll over itself like miles of carpeting. There’s no way that this much of the earth moved. It seemed to be wrong in some way. Maybe it is covering more. She tries not to think about it. Thinking about it would make this far more real than she’s ready to accept. Rey knows Ben is real though. She touched him. Felt him. Slept beside him, he was there.Real.She had to find him.Using the inside of her sleeve, which isn’t much cleaner, Rey wipes the mud from her lip, spitting the excess dirt from her mouth. It’s cold like this above ground, she thinks, starting to rip the additional sleeve from her body, she finds some relief. Now weighted down by her skirt, she finds that need to go too. Button by button she releases it from her bodice leaving her in her long pantaloons, which she’s absolutely dying to replace with anything but won’t let the air claim it. They are the closest thing to pants she has, and it will not be going. Her boots had seen better days but were intact for the most part, making it slightly easier to climb over and around the tumbled grass.

That’s a feat. 

That’s for sure.Finally above the mess she sees the what looks like a cabin. It’s not though, she can assure herself of the fact that it really isn’t. It’s far too tall from the ones she’d seen near home. While some of the face of the building was in fact made of some rendition of what she’s sure now petrified wood, there were stacked stones in a brick and mortar style build that dare she assume is thousands of years old. Even though she’s not sure just how far the stone continues, she is aware of the cascading land that seemed to pour from the roof.Oh, the roof, she thinks.Ben!Rey’s mind shouts as if he could hear her through some bond. She knows this isn’t the case but is too terrified now to speak; it could move again, trapping them both.  
   
“Ben?” it comes out in a self-conscious hiss, “Hey?” she pauses again, her ears straining against the silence.  
   
There’s nothing.  
   
Nothing more than infuriating silence. Clumps of dirt start to rustle from above her freezing all forward movement. A single sound could cause another event, she thinks, waiting for the uncertainty of the land to pass. It feels like hours before she can move again, but when she does she crawls up to what looks like a doorframe, the door broken, tossed back into the hall she’s sure its due to the force that landed on  top of it and nothing else.  
   
“Ben?” she whispers. Again, there’s no answer, only, the sound of crinkling leaves dragging across the floor.  
   
Just like her nightmares. Why are there leaves in this building, she panics.It’s a coincidence. That was all, plenty of season changes blew all types of things into her home. Leaves in the fall, snow in the winter, bees and pollen in the sprint, and heat and humidity in the summer. This was nothing to be concerned with. They’re just leaves, she told herself. Just leaves. Her senses spike terribly now. Every sound is rewarded with a swift turn of her head, a look with her piercing eyes, she’s looking for something. Ben is on her radar but not what she’s seeking. If this place is calling her, she wants to know why.  
   
“Rehy,” she hears turning through the hallway, hunched like a stalking predator, because that’s what she feels like, even when she wants to run from this place, she still feels the need to fight.  
   
That’s new.  
Just as she turns, a flash of her eyes spooks the large dark figure just as much as it scares her.  
   
“Fuck, Rehy,” Ben complains. “Don’t do that.”Ben!“Where are you?” she whispers her question, still not sure about the dark figure. It could be a trap. She has run from these before. Been lured by the shadows.  
   
That rumble, she’s heard it. What might be Ben wheezes when he gets up holding out his hand asking her to take it. The very fact that he’s done it and she still can’t see him, scares her. “You’re one of them, aren’t you?” she feels herself backing away from him.  
   
“One of what? Its just me and you,” the man coughs. Rey finds herself retreating all the way back to the door frame from which she came in, threatened as the figure seems to grow. Her hand burns, aching for something, but it can’t be here, she shakes her mind free from it.  
   
Her hand reaches behind her finding something metallic, something she missed when she first arrived, wedged behind the door.  
   
It’ll do, she thinks, wielding it in front of her like she’d always known how.  
   
“Rey?” A voice behind her calls from far beyond the pit. If that was Ben, then what’s coming for her? Rey makes her way back into the open landscape, the sun filtering through their accident, ending the terror with one message.  
   
Light conquers all.  
   
Unafraid, remembering the morning, Rey runs from this place, metal object still in hand. Her clothes and body still filthy from the fall, Rey can feel the dried clumps shed from her skin now flying behind her.  
   
“Ben?” Rey screams, her head turning this way and that, searching for him. She tries his name over and over again now looking to burry that place with whatever was in it in the ground. “Ben?” she shrieks again.  
   
A pair of arms she knows reaches out to grab her before she hurtles herself into the lake. They’re warm and covered in mud and the most calming things she’s ever been wrapped in.  
   
“Rey, woah, slow down,” she hears him say, worry in his face now evident when she can finally see it that is. “What? What did you find?” Ben looks down at what she’s holding, now wedged frighteningly between his legs. “Don’t move it, at all…” he warns her.  
   
For the first time since she’d been asleep, she feels like herself again. Sure, there was unrefined bits of her swirling around, her fight or flight modes both on the fritz, but here with him, she feels safe. It’s odd, really. She can’t describe why either, he just settles her, even when he looks as though he needs it just as much as she does.  
   
“I promise I wont neuter you,” she replies, watching her friend’s eyes light up when he smiles.  
   
He really does have a gorgeous smile, she thinks.  
   
“I’m going to put you down now,” he says cautiously, moving her with little effort. Next to be taken is the blade. He weighs it in his grip, impressed that she had been able to hold it with one hand too. Finally, he asks, “Where did you find this?”  
   
The sword looked as if it had been made as a prop. Ornate, not from any specific time period, that he knew at least. Ben hadn’t been up on his Renaissance weaponry, but even this looked too decorative to be wielded for anything more than play.  Markings swirled all around the blade marrying the handle with the same delicate shielding for the user’s hand. It was interesting, but strange. Even more so that it had been found here, where they still hadn’t found food. The both of their stomachs growled now needing water at the very least.  
   
Ben notices the way that Rey’s looking at him, as if to remember this moment, but its different. More intense now.  
   
“Tell me something, Ben. Anything; promise me you’re here. Not a shadow,” Ben swallows as her face contorts in fear. 

The memory still burning through her like the one on her hand. Even though she learned about the light, they only had half the day to return to night, and what then? Would they be able to survive it? Would he run like she did? Would he fight. Her skin prickles at the thought of fighting it at night. What would they do?  
   
What would she do?  
   
Breaking her from her spell of questions, Ben begins to tell her about his life before this, how success had met him but he still felt empty, like there was nothing for him there, “and then there was you. The most intriguing, beguiling woman, I have ever met.”  
   
Her brow furrows becoming more aware of his presence, his hair all the way down to his missing shoe is covered in mud. A shadow couldn’t hold his form out in the open like this. The shadow had no true form, it moved unnaturally, and her Ben stands before her dumping his life into her hands with no real interest in stopping.  
   
The more he says, the more she wants to know. It turns out the man is far more interesting than she pegged him for.“So you made the armor there?”  
   
“Yes,” he confirms with a flop of his matted hair.  
   
“If we ever get back, do you think you can make me some? Help save me from my nightmares?”  
   
“If that’s what will help—but I strongly suggest you get your head looked at before you go around wearing armor to combat dreams.”  
   
With that she pushes him, his foot falling to the side into the water’s edge, splashing lightly as it goes. The both of them look towards the other end of the lake frowning as they do.  
   
“Is it just me, or,” Rey stops.  
   
“This is the cleanest lake I have ever seen.”  
   
“Because you’re a lake connoisseur,” she teases.  
   
“I happen to know a lot about lakes…”  
   
“Hmm,” Rey hums ready to slap another line down just to watch him blush in the process.  
Instead Ben silences her, taking off his shoe, then pants, followed by his shirt, almost certain she’d lost her footing, staggering off to the side to give him space. 

Space for herself to look, he smirks at himself.  
   
And how she looks burns bother of their cheeks. 

It’s more like an open-mouthed gape she’s not even trying to hide. Well that settles it, she thinks. The muscles she had been observing during his descend down the cliff were certainly real. She urges herself not to downright fan herself, but the weakness strikes her again when he runs playfully into the water, diving in as cheerfully as a little kid on a hot summer’s day. It’s nice to see, given the circumstances.  
   
A moment passes between then and now, urging her not to look back, to know all was right, that moving into the water would show her all she needed to see.  
   
And just like that, Rey readies herself for a swim too, leaving the blade that lightly hums in her hand, far to quietly to notice, in a heap with her clothes as well.   
   
“Khyloh,” she sounds out the familiar call in the passing breeze trying to answer it. 

“Show yourself.”  
   
   
   
 


	5. Chapter 5

Ben floated comfortably in the crystal blue lake, truly enjoying his ability to see the bottom. Rippling rings around him called Rey in. She’s seen this place before. But where?  
   
Stepping out of her shoes and long bloomers herself, Rey rested the muddied items at the shoreline. Next she reached for the tie connecting her bodice from the back, holding the front with one arm while she unlaced the rest, her eyes trailing over her shoulder capturing glimpses of shadows around her.  
   
Or what looked like shadows.  
   
Something, a translucent entity was moving over her skin, making her nervous. The more clothing she removed the odder she felt. Not necessarily exposed in any way. Rey was never truly at ends with her body. She was who she was and that was it. There was no sense in body shaming herself, so that wasn’t the issue. Nor was there a problem with Ben being in the water before her.  
   
He was actually forgotten the moment Khyloh’s name whispered in the wind. After the shadows in the stronghold, Rey was determined to find out what Khyloh was. If he was the shadow, she would deal with him out in the bright sunlight. If not, well, she would learn to adapt like she always has.  
   
“Show yourself,” she breathed again, dropping her bodice, too, at the water’s edge.   
   
Now pacing forward, Rey lets out a sigh. The water, cooler than she would have liked, rises up over her ankles, higher and higher until it surrounds her midthigh. Her arms rest comfortably at her sides when she walks, her fingers trailing the surface finally submerge altering her calm state.  
   
Rey’s legs feel as though they’ve been set in vices, unable to resist the oncoming change, a surge of energy presses hard into her hand. Her mark glows brightly enough to be seen through the top of her hand. It starts off pink, burning through the colors of her hand’s depth until she can only see the golden light there. Rotating it ever so slightly, she sees how the burn glows white underneath. Despite its color, the discolored flesh doesn’t hurt. Instead, it fades the higher she pulls it from the water’s surface.  
   
Khyloh calls through the air again, even though there is no breeze. This place… it knows her… it knows whoever Khyloh is… and if she’s ever going to find out anymore, Rey knows she’ll have to focus.  
   
Dipping her finger back into the water called the essence of the lake to respond. Soon to follow is the reflecting light of the sun’s rays over the surface. She watched as they seemed to rush to her, called on by a higher force she couldn’t yet understand.  
   
Light swirls around the lake itself, chasing ribbons of shadow. Each tightly coiling around her before being shot forward onto the surface once more.  
   
It’s then when she can see memories of lives past and the beast within her.  
   
Somehow, deep down, she knew this was right. Rey had battled her nightmares enough times, chased the images of dragons for so long, it didn’t seem out of place to label her as one. Her only questions now pertained to just how old she is and what she has to do with this new knowledge. The images ran as far back as her first nightmares showing the face of yet another. One she had to only assume was Khyloh himself.  
 

He saved her that night.

And  yet, with all of this information, she feels literally helpless. If he was here, really here, she could learn a thing or two from him… but he’s not. He’s living within her.

“What am I supposed to do?” Rey whispers her question. Her doubt rolls off her skin in waves, shaking the connection within the light of her being.

All at once both light and shadow rush her. Absorbing into her skin from the far reaches of the body of water itself.

She hasn’t had the frame of mind to look for Ben but assumes hes just as shocked as she is. Instead, she pays attention, wanting to know all she can.

A form starts to glow over her skin, lighting up the sky with thin exoskeleton showing her the form she’d take if she ever could declare a time she’d need it. Her arms looked as though they were wrapped, layered in armor that detailed her skin in such a way she couldn’t be sure if she could move in it. Rey’s hands grew within the form circulating above her body, showing an array of different features which included her hands, and how her claws curled from the tips of what used to be her fingers. Tilting her head back she could see just how long her neck would become, the generous formation of Khyloh’s crown of horns surrounding her own around the softer features of her face.

Rey rolled her shoulders feeling weight there too. It was then when it all became real, static electricity rained down through the form as she moved it, her lips part in amazement that this was really her. Well, them. Her wings were remarkably large with an ornate design she’d never seen in any mythological books, nothing really compared to the tear drop pattern they took. Deep down she knew what they looked like past this, but still truly wanted to see them now.

It isn’t time, however.

Khyloh calls to her again and she listens.

“He left; protect him,” the voice rushes out.

Rey turns abruptly noticing his clothes are gone.

No.

“Shadows in the trees will kill him,” Khyloh’s voice strains.

Why it matters to him, she’ll never know, but Ben was there for her, and Takodana be damned, she was going to look out for the man.

Trudging through the water became harder on the way out now that she could use them of course. The example of herself fades as she turns to face her fears. Redressing had been hard enough being she couldn’t dry off. The mud left on them since ignored knowing full well she was going into battle.

“Ben!” she shouts into the valley. She stops a moment to listen for him. She knows he wont call back. She knows he’s afraid. But death lies behind those trees. He wont make it but a foot within them. Shes seen it before

“Ben! Stop! Please!” she shouts again.

Rey sees him stand, running further beyond her view.

No.

She calls upon her form, begging Khyloh to set her free, but she doesn’t change.

Well, isn’t this just great. Ben’s a dead man. Khyloh isn’t responding and she still doesn’t know how to control her power. Instead of wasting anymore time, she runs off in the direction he’d gone in hoping she’d catch up.  

When she finally does, Rey lays on her belly sneaking up to him in the tall grass.

“Stay back!” Ben shouts at her pointing the sword she claimed from the stronghold in her face.

“You’re too close to the tree line. They’re coming…” Rey delivers finally. Her lungs heave burning with every pull of air she can muster up to fill her lungs.

“Who’s coming?” Ben’s voice cracks with worry.

“The…” she pants.

“Tell me!” he all but growls.

“The… the shadows.”

“Shadows?! Rey, everyone has a shadow, you have one…” he says, trying to convince her that what she’s saying is crazy.

“No, these… they… they’re the purest of evils,” Rey says grabbing his wrist to pry the sword from his hand, her body flowing naturally from the ground to standing with his. Her hand laying at the base of the handle with his, flicks the broadsword apart, giving way to two blades. Engraving down the blade lights in a burning blue and white flame Ben’s never seen before causing him to drop the weapon in the grass instead of lining up beside her.

Rey’s form takes the lit weapon, turning from him to rip through the first shadow to emerge, challenging all to come promising their demise.

Rey can hear Khyloh sigh, ready to tell her that was wrong. But she can feel this now, the ground, the air, the electricity within it, the force between them. His guidance steadies her since the beginning of her existence and on… Rey finally knew her place and well.  
   
She can embrace it.  
She will not fail him.  
   
Not this time.

Thunder rumbles just past what she can’t see. Wicked eyes gleaming, their bodies running swiftly at her. Rey keeps her blade low and out by her side, moving only when she needs to. Slicing the lit sword through the flesh of the shadow made the creature sputter into smaller pieces of it’s being. Rey, however, misses their rebirth. They’re small but just as dangerous.  
   
“Don’t let them touch you,” Khyloh whispers. “They’ll end us.”  
   
Chills run up her arms at the thought of her mortality.  
   
They’ll end us.  
   
In the visions he showed of her in the lake, there was always a chance at a rebirth, a second coming, again and again until she turned into what she is now, carrying both of their lives in a single person. There was no end. Not then. How could this end them now.  
   
“They’ve been hunting us for years. Ben is the mortal. Without the essence you carry, there can be no more life cycles. It will truly be the end.”  
   
“Defend yourself!” Rey calls over the chaos, swinging her burning blade high over her head before landing a critical strike through yet another terrifying creature.  
   
“I don’t have a weapon!” Ben runs from the line, the long grass claiming his ankles.  
   
Rey growls, whipping her arm forward to cut through several smaller shadows, slowly dragging the fire through them so that they’d disappear into nothing. She keeps her hand steady, rolling her wrist up and around within her space and back behind her, holding the blade downward, low enough to start a wildfire.  
   
Light, she thinks. Light will conquer the darkness.  
   
Her blade set low throws sparks of blue and white fire onto the ground, never once altering in color. This is no fire. This is her essence.  
   
There’s no time to think about it now.  
   
Her feet carried her faster than she’d ever ran before.  
   
The ground behind her burn hotter than the star she started out as, fading shadows that mindlessly chased her through it. The tallest point of the flame glowed blue, reaching just about as high as her shoulders, fed by what? There was nothing to climb, nothing to grow with, and yet it still reached higher into the sky.  
   
Rey came in contact with the remainder of the broad sword, bending merely inches forward to pick the item up, cleanly, with no fear of toppling. Able to control it on an upswing, rolling it in her hand, hoping the same would work for this blade as well, Rey ran to Ben’s side.  
   
It all happened so fast.  
   
She swung the first blade with certainty through the next wave of terrors coming from the next direction. The second, more cumbersome blade lit slowly in her hand, not ready to accept her, the engraving fails just short of the last two markings. The thought of this not working the way she expected was too heavy a thought for her. There she stood, her back to Ben trying to control this weapon and keep him safe at the same time.  
   
The darkness overtook the space behind them, circling them where the light couldn’t reach. Rey fights off the beast, dropping her lit sword down into the grassy ravine, while she controlled the upswing of the heavier piece, just barely swatting the creature down, falling along with it.  
   
Ben did his best to get away, frightened by the turn of events. She had the upper hand… and now she’s swatting at them. He’d almost accepted their fate until Rey cried out, a blood curdling scream he wished he’d been granted the mercy never to hear.  
   
Doing the best he could to stand, Ben fishes out her extinguished thinner weapon, swinging it wildly around him like a baseball bat. The man might not have known how to use such a thing, but he could certainly swing away. The two forced their way to the other and away again.  
   
“Rey!” Ben shouts over the howls of the damned.  
   
Her vision snaps to his as if they’d always been like this. Locked on the other’s positions, no matter how far the distance.  
   
“What?!” she calls back to him, using both hands to drop her next swing deep into a smaller entity.  
   
“Switch!” he huffs through several more swings.  
   
She knew he didn’t mean sides, but the massive item needed to be delivered to him. But there’s no time. A fresh wave comes at them from all directions. Ben throws her the blade. Imploring her that she light it up.  
   
But there’s too many…  
   
Strike after strike had her wondering just how much more she could take of this. The creatures were all different shapes and sizes now... all capable of destroying the one person she swore to protect.

Ben…  
   
And now he’s weaponless.

She looked over her shoulder as she turned through the next form, screaming as she went. Something overtook him, forcing an edge of their dark being into the soft flesh of his chest, curving over his neck dropping him to the ground as it finished laying claim to the man before her.

She failed him. 

She failed Khyloh. 

Rey screams into the sinister black void as she once did for Khyloh, the sound ripping through her very soul, straining her lungs, fracturing the ground as she breaks down herself.

Unlike the first time, Rey’s form had since matured. Her battle cry stopped all forward motion. Instead, each being hung in the challenge. Rey’s change is immediate, calling upon the energy within the land. Her dragon form is her own, naturally every fiber of her being responds just as comfortably as if it were truly her body.

Pounding the ground with what used to be her hands, Rey extracts her claws into it, gearing up to let them know what they’ve awakened.  
   
Khyloh snarls with her, coaching her as he once did.

The next sound she makes is a low growl that builds in her throat. The warmth there is terrifying, but Khyloh’s there, once again telling her how to hold it and when to release. Her scream is filled with a tasteless gas, the fire snapping through the release of her scream burns the remainder of evil from this land.

In her fury, Rey doesn’t feel the release of her shared essence ribboning out if her body as it once left Khyloh’s.  
   
The power that had left her body drops her heavily onto the ground and with nothing left to give, she curls her iridescent legs under her body waiting for the sun to set and the night to claim her. 

There she greaves for both Ben and Khyloh, in the remainder of the scorched land she started on.  
   
They’re gone.  
   
Not even a whisper in the wind calms her.

And in the wake of ending this madness she feels truly alone.

All the while ribbons of red and black flutter from the depths of her soul across the land caressing the wounds Ben had received, calling to his soul to reconnect with his essence of being. The mortal’s body accepted it within moments of his end.  
   
Ben, while debilitated, can only accept these changes, unaware of what’s truly taking place, he lays there in the setting sun, warming and cooling all at once.  
   
“Rey!” he shouts, sitting upright in a panic, unsure of why they’re not being attacked anymore.  
   
The sun out in the distance casts a shadow that reaches his feet, but none as dark as what they faced together. His eyes travel over the land settling on the creature yards away from him, collapsed on the ground. Ben knows it’s her. He’d seen the images at the lake… how the darker one laid there like that. She… Rey… she’s dying.  
   
Ben looks over her finding it’s only taken him a few steps to get to her, where it should have been more.  
   
She wasn’t close.  
   
And yet he’s there, higher than her. 

The man panics, looking down at his own body wondering what happened do him when he sees darkly colored scales instead of his pale skin. A sound leaves him, which should have been more of a surprised gasp, instead sounds like a moan similar to that of a big cat. 

Ben looks around, falling to the ground beside her, his feet stomping around in what’s left of the fragile blades of grass, disorienting him for a moment. Why did he fall? His lengthy finned tail thrashes behind him as he tries to stand again making the action impossible. 

While the beast’s body solidifies around Ben, he too hears from Khyloh, promising the man that they are of two halves given a another chance at survival because of Rey’s sacrifice. Compelled to go to her, Khyloh pushes Ben to move. Nuzzling the round tip of his nose against hers, trying to wake her. 

“Cover her, Ben,” Khyloh urges. “If she doesn’t move and the sun has set, her life cycle will renew leaving us behind her again. Keep her close. Keep her warm.”

“Protect,” Ben and Khyloh say as one.  
 


	6. Chapter 6

The sun has since dipped into the horizon. Golden light pools just beneath it calling Ben’s attention to it. He’d seen the setting before in the swirling memories of her past standing at the top of the ridge, far away from the lake by then. He knows it means something, but what, he’s not sure. He can hear Kylo correcting him on how to say his name. It’s his form and he won’t be having anyone, not even his human consciousness over dramatize it.

Ben had to learn to look when Kylo did, and moving both consciousnesses had been difficult, but Rey needed them. They had to work together.

When he could finally get it together, Ben looked over Rey as Kylo did, letting Kylo take the lead. His essence burned brightly for her he thinks, never once did it occur to him that Kylo could take Rey from him, even if they were the same being, but here he is, witnessing him care for her. Lowering his head carefully Kylo rubs his long neck against hers hoping for her to move. Ben can feel his emotion, the worry that surged through him, piercing both of their souls with grief.

“She’s not gone, not yet,” Kylo whispers.

Ben feels the weight of those words heavy in his heart. These last few days have been frightening to say the least, but in every move, he learned more about her spirit, about what she could handle but feared this may be the last of her power.

Rey’s body is curled up in a tight ball, all except her wings and tail that sprawl across the land. His eyes travel over her skin which looks like snow, sparkling in the sunlight. His eyes travel over her brilliant form, her beautiful wings, soft spines down her tail to what he thinks are fins similar to a shark’s he imagines.

Kylo stretches his neck out, looking up and over her, what he’s looking for is found between her wings, favoring her left side. A long deep cut is there, one that must have been from when she screamed. Ben regrets that immediately. If he didn’t run, would she have had this? Would she have collapsed? Would they be safe now?

His questions go unanswered as Kylo lays down beside her, pulling his tail in to guide hers against her body. Next he dips his head, his neck nearly folded to complete the task doesn’t go unnoticed by Ben. Kylo then moves to nose over it, her wing stretching out further, gave into a beautiful show of light.

How is that even possible, Ben wonders.

Her skin went from being iridescent to nearly transparent showing more of her to them. Her essence was under fire, begging to stay alive.

Kylo, like any animal licking a wound, began at the base of the terrifying scratch, testing the area with the flat of his tongue. He was listening for her… trailing the edge of the gash hoping she’d make more than an involuntary movement. By the mid-point of her gash, she let out a groan, the pain of it evident, by the way that she ground her head down into the grass, her face wincing like human and animal alike would have but doesn’t move much after.

Kylo huffs, doing in best not to make her feel the need to get up, meticulously working his tongue over her wound. Once he’s done, he reaches the tip of his wing just over hers, pulling it back in, abruptly stopping when she moans again. This time, it sounds like she’s weeping.

“I’m sorry little one,” his says, the strain in his voice is inescapable.

Sensing Ben’s swirling questions, Kylo explains who they are and what they represent. “I saw you run from it. I knew you would…”

“Knew I would? Anyone would have run from that show,” Ben retorts.

“Not Rey,” Kylo raised the thickly scaled skin above his eye as a challenge.

“Rey is one of you,” Ben spit back.

“Rey is not one of us, Ben. We—well, my form, has been around for thousands of years. We are of the First Obsidian dragon warriors, protectors of the unknown reaches… Rey chose this life. She,” Kylo shakes his head, “She’s a star…look…”

Energy in Rey’s body swirls around, flashing white lights every so often as if they were clusters of stars inside of her. What wasn’t flickering were condensed blue glowing gasses that looked similar to the tendrils of hair that once framed Rey’s face. Well, the one Ben used to know. 

“The night she came into my life, I had enough of being used. Being a protector of the unknown reaches means everywhere, not just here, not just on this planet, not just this galaxy. First Obsidian dragon warriors are called upon for all things. Usually battle or to show force. At first, I didn’t mind this. I had been all over the galaxy, tied down by only my calling, until I got here. This place afforded a battle that could not be won by my kind. I’d never experienced an evil quite like this one here… and when I thought all hope was gone, she came.”

Kylo sighed lapping at her wound again, making sure she would stir before continuing.

“Unlike the common misconception about dragons, we’re born, just like you. Rey… Rey fell from the sky. Emerged from a rock… I think it was a rock. She had no form. Looked a little bigger than the biggest star here, reached out, and took a form without fighting it. Like it was meant to be.”

Kylo snorts, “She even tried to protect me as a runt.”

Ben grins asking what he means.

“She was much smaller than this. Not much bigger than a cluster of leaves.” Kylo smiles fondly at the memory. “She took the form at her weakest point and grew when she gained my essence. I never knew we’d last this long, given how small she was, but Rey adapted. She may not have been the biggest, or most powerful, or even travelled to other realms, but she stood her ground, believing in who called her.”

“You? Were you the one that lead her nightmares?” Ben couldn’t help how that made him sound, but it was there.

“No, I called to her when she’d been within reach.” Kylo sneered as a warning as if Ben could be kicked out of his own being. “The shadows are the evils that plagued her since she’d screamed for me.”

Ben swallowed hard. What did that even mean?

Unlike his original approach, Kylo let Ben stew, regardless of the fact that it truly didn’t mean what the man in him had been implying. Instead he goes on, explaining how life cycles could end and that there was no timeline for the next coming. Sometimes death held its grip while other times his life was too greatly needed, summoning him back from the shadowy reaches of space itself.

“It doesn’t surprise me that she took other forms on each of her rebirths,” he snorts. “Why be this size in a world that can’t understand what we are? A human though… she chose to be human so many times.”

“Looking for me…” Ben trails.

“Ah, now you’re getting it. We needed you. A source, one to pass my essence to, but you had to be worthy. She had to feel safe. And now she is.” Kylo proudly looks over her, his head held high as the golden rod settling over the horizon shrinks into nothing.

He doesn’t say much more after that, his main focus turns to taking care of the one before him. Kylo first turns his face away from her, blowing fire deep within the ground, burning what was left of the grass underneath them as well as the stones further into the ground expecting to feel the warmth well into the night. Just as soon as he’s satisfied, he stretches his wing out, further than hers, dragging it back toward her so that he could cover her properly with his own.

Night comes swiftly, darkening the land. What was once lit in golden light is now shaded in deep purples and grey, accepting the ambient twinkling light from the stars above. Kylo watches Rey’s body rise and fall waiting for her to disappear, she wasn’t getting up, and that was the only sign he needed that she wouldn’t be rejoining him. It’d been so many years of this. So many life cycles... he felt it deep within his soul that she’d be leaving.

“You did well, Rey. I could never have asked for more,” Kylo whispers above her. “You’ll rejoin the stars when you go. You belong there, far from these terrors, little one.”

His brow furrows feeling oddly like prey. Something’s coming. He can feel an energy unlike hers crawling under his scales, his body tensing instinctively, Kylo lets out a low growl deep in his throat releasing a stream of fire, circling them in safety.

Cracking fire spits and pops around them waking Rey. Her eyes are heavy but manages to open them focusing on the proud form above her.

“Kylo?” she asks weakly.

Kylo clutches her closely... growling again. Protecting her from what’s coming.

“Say down, Rey.” It’s not a command, it’s a plea. She’d been so close to another death, Kylo could barely deal with yet another. Not now. Not when they finally have each other.  
But even now something creeps over the land, silently stalking them. Kylo’s only seen it once before. The wall… it engulfs worlds whole and here it comes to take them too. The only light surrounding them is that of Kylo’s fire and the fleeting essence within Rey herself. 

“I’m here for your essence, girl,” a choir of voices hissed through the wind. 

Rey, despite Kylo’s wishes, rolled to the side, snarling as she did. Her eyes flashed blue instead of red, Ben noticed, wondering why the sudden change, but there’s no time to find out why. 

Whispering intensified, layering her with panic. Rey’s eyes narrowed as Kylo’s did, reluctantly releasing her since she would only continue thrashing around. 

Instead, he joins her, planting one large armored foot into the earth, clenching it with his long claws, his body bowed forward, pulling his back legs up from the ground where they laid. His long-ribbed tail swings carefully side to side balancing him on the way up, stretching his massive obsidian wings out to the sides, challenging the entity. Kylo’s bared his teeth as a warning. Nothing would get past him. 

“Kylo Ren,” the whispers continue, undeterred by his show, “You never do learn do you boy?”

Shadows strike through his wall of embers, piercing him quickly before retreating into the massive body behind it. Each prick is more painful than the last, despite his armor. 

Rey’s heard this all before. 

She’s witnessed it in the lake, seen him die so many times. 

Her thoughts are interrupted by his roar silencing the land from the torturous taunts and promises of her demise. He blew wave after wave of fire through the air until another attack on him hit from the sides, making his wings involuntarily fold in on themselves, revealing Rey. 

Rey’s skin twinkled under another blast of his fire. Not much more could be seen in the darkness besides the blue haze tangling with what was left of her white essence. While it’s hard to move she does so with precision. One deliberate step forward, then the next, until she’s charging Kylo’s large form. It’s painful, but it needs to be done.

“I’ll come back to you,” she whispers as she jumps onto him, using his form as leverage. Her wings flap hard downward, making her shriek in pain.

Light blue tendrils of her power keep him bound to the earth while she rises to meet this faceless entity. 

“Rey!” Kylo shouts after her. Beating the land with his feet, unable to move much higher than his hindlegs can push him. “REY!!”

Terrifyingly enough the shadow engulfs her, just as it said it would.

Feeling helpless, Ben screams pushing Kylo roar louder than he’d ever known possible. It shook the land, echoing off of the far reaches of the space around them but for nothing. 

She...

She...left him... willingly.

Kylo stumbles to the ground, the heaviness of his actions, all those years ago finally came back around, hitting him hard. He’d saved her once and, in that moment, she swore to protect him, she’d left him… to…

Darkness around him shifts from the fiery orange hues of his dying fire to grey making him feel as though destruction was truly upon them. If it hadn’t been for Ben’s curiosity, Kylo was sure he wouldn’t have looked up. A haze of blue swirled through the thick shadows calling to him, even if it was her dying essence, he needed to see her one last time. 

The blue color eventually spreads far and wide tainting the darkness’ entity. Chills run throughout his body as he watches it slowly take over. All at once it’s too bright to watch, a blast of white burns through the sky sending shockwaves in multiple directions around its center. 

A final whisper, unlike the sound of her voice, adds, “Light conquers darkness,” before returning the land to its natural beauty. 

Kylo extends himself, finally able to leave the ground, in search of Rey, but Ben keeps him in place. 

“Stay,” he says, watching the night sky brilliantly decorated with stars he’d never seen before.  
“If she gave herself up here, wont she come back here too?”

Kylo shakes his head from side to side as if he’d rather not think like that, adding, “that’s not how this works.”

Ben swallows, hoping she’d come down. Prove this old soul wrong. 

They lay patiently waiting for her return, studying the stars left in her wake. Shooting stars rain in all different directions, each one getting them more excited than the last, and yet, none are Rey.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Music for this is:   
> Really Slow Motion: Iridescence

Rey’s gone for days… she’s gone.

Kylo doesn’t take this change well. Why couldn’t she just listen? He paced all day as the sun finally rose. She hadn’t been back, not even an echo of the night before howled in the wind.

Sensing Ben’s inability to completely shift had been the only reason for leaving. That in it of it’s self was an issue.

“How long has it been since your last meal,” Kylo huffed, extending his large wings out to either side of him.

“Close to a week,” Ben replies, his consciousness slumps as he does sending an urgency through Kylo.

Air around him thundered wildly against his body as he soared high above the land in search of food. Of all the time Ben and Rey spent together in this place, he never once did find food, not even in the lake where he contemplated eating grass just to get by. His thoughts are poorly received by Kylo who dives down towards an unsuspecting heard of wild sheep, scooping a few up in his open mouth only to be thrown up immediately.

“What?!” Kylo grumbles.

“I can’t eat that,” Ben gags on the thought of it not being cooked, then on a slew of other human specific issues Kylo could only roll his eyes at.

Heat rose in his throat, clocking once to ignite the gas stream within him. Kylo directed his spits of fire with a sense of urgency, charring creatures to a crisp before landing to gulp them down like tiny morsels.

“I take it from your silence this is better,” Kylo said, continuing to snack on the remainder of the creatures with no additional response from Ben.

Kylo’s feels the change. Their division no longer an issue. Ben finally slipped into his conscious as one being. At least they had that.

Being of one mind was certainly better than being split. That was for sure.

As time continued to pass, Kylo remembered to feed, soaring further over the treetops to see just how far this land would stretch, never once leaving the Takodana forest, hoping one day Rey would return.

One night, while time had blended their nights and days, Kylo’s head snapped up to look towards the sky. Something entered the atmosphere... Unlike the tiny meteor showers that burned up in the moment they hit, this was far bigger, the sound of it rumbled through the air.

Kylo hopped up onto all four, doing his best not to get his hopes up, but couldn’t stop himself from prancing in place.

Flying up to greet it crosses his mind but that seemed dangerous. One change in direction from this thing could burn him alive. The risk would be for nothing if Rey was on her way back to him.

Instead, he watches the white streak with a bright blue tail burn just as brightly as it dropped from the sky.

It’s her! His heart pounds wildly in his chest. Kylo tracks her as she descends... zooming past him in an instant, the rock formation pummeling into the ground at such a speed it blasts the dirt around it.

Rey. Rey. Rey. Rey...

Kylo chanted her name, excitedly chasing her down until the meteoroid began to crumble revealing an energy Kylo’s never known. The size had been surprisingly larger than what she first came with all those years ago.

Unable to wait any longer, Kylo extends his neck to her placing the crown of his head within the blinding light. His Rey would hear him. She would know they stayed waiting for her.

He feels an energy faintly touch the ridge of his wound, filling it—healing it, the idea had not been lost on him.

It’s her...

Kylo feels the need to hold her, promising he’d never felt so alone despite having Ben.

Her energy surged through the space, lighting the night in a bright white glow around the two of them.

“You’re never alone,” she whispers back to him. His eyes never leaving her as she takes her next form.

She’s only light.

Their shooting star.

She’d always return to him. He knows this now.

Her size matches his to a degree, still, a little smaller, he notices, but not nearly as small as she was before.

Rey’s face is beautiful. Shimmering scales sparkle beneath bright blue glowing orbs as she changes. Her form takes his shape, creating short rows of horns starting just behind brow curving around her crown in a semi circle. Larger ones layer themselves back behind the first row, tapering off around her lower jaw. Her scales twinkle while rippling blue ribbons of her essence flutter around her body revealing her smooth front legs and feet, curling down over her deep grey claws before disappearing before them. 

Her midsection, hind legs, and tail stow much of the same. Energy travels back up her spine, rewarding her with Kylo’s fin like plates all the way back up to the base of her wings. Her most defining attribute, her promise of every return shows in the decoration of her wings. Transparent detail within them shows each of her signature returns calling like meteors from the bend in her wings outward to the edge, the blue essence swirling around a bright white star in every section.

Rey closes her eyes allowing one more change.

Claiming the darkness Kylo holds she lets it paint her scales, her skin... wrap her in comfort as she takes on her final form. Feeling Kylo’s eyes on her, Rey finally opens hers, that of which blazes in blue, the center sparkling white challenging him to speak. 

“Rey?” Kylo whispers, his dark orbs searching her animated light.

“Kylo?” She smiles backing away from his head to sit, letting the glowing light fade from view. 

“You picked my form?” He says, choking on each word.

“After all you’ve given... it would be wrong not to offer us a future, wouldn’t it?” she bows her head, looking to the side, and up at him, watching how her message effects him. 

“I—you?” He whispers his response. “You don’t even know me.”

“But I do, Kylo. You’ve protected me in every one of my darkest hours. I know what I need. I know what I have. We, Kylo, now have eternity.”

Kylo extends his nose to her, nuzzling the length of his cheek just under her neck, promising time for that as she wishes it.

“But for now,” he adds, stepping forward as he does. “Now, we should eat. How does fish sound?”

Rey follows his direction step for step, answering, “Small,” yelping softly at the feel of Kylo’s long tail swatting at her just so that thin fins at the tip barely brush her side. 

Rey shoulders against him, pushing him off her playfully, to which Kylo merely takes a step to the side. He watches her hop around in the tall grass, planting her forearms deep within it with her hind still up, rear and tail swinging as she goes. Her wings steady her on either side, ready for another jump. 

Playing never really occurred to Kylo. It seems... fun. He watches as she moves, stumbling slightly when she tries jumping from left to right. Her eyes alight with amusement when he follows, rustling in the grass along with her, all the way back to the water’s edge.

Kylo’s tail reaches out behind them splashing cool pristine water towards her, hitting them both. Rumbling laughter rolls in his throat despite his best effort to hide it, while Rey’s surprised expression shows it all and more, stunning him in place. 

Rey must feel it too. 

Cool droplets still fall from her face as she stares quite deeply into his unsuspecting eyes. Kylo jerks away slightly unsure of that look. Is he in trouble? he swallowed hard waiting for her response, not nearly expecting what she gave.

Her face is impossibly close. He’s sure he couldn’t possibly get out of this one. Now without a swat at least, and yet all he feels is the welcomed warmth of her tongue against his cheek. 

She kissed him...

His eyes opened wide while his jaw hung open. Never in any of his life cycles did he ever mingle with the rest. They were a legion of warriors. There was no reason for anything like that. But now, we’ll, now his body hummed for her. Unable to control this powerful new urge, Kylo struts up to her, nuzzling his crown against hers, igniting her light, phasing them back into the human world.

There they stood in the middle of the Renaissance Faire, surrounded by people haggling in the market, their forms as they once were, human, dressed pristinely, firmly pressed against the other’s body. Rey’s arms encircle Ben’s neck, his long hair tickling her own in their embrace. 

“Ky—Ben?” Rey asks, stopping abruptly. Her lips brush his own but pull back in a panic. 

“It’s me, little one,” Ben says, letting the sound of his own voice rumble in his throat like Kylo would.

“But, I...”

“He’ll always be here when you need him. Just like you were here for us...” Ben explains. “”While we’re here in this form, this is who I am.”

Rey can hear the way his voice begins to fall flat, short of confidence he once had.

“I don’t know if I’ll ever be good enough for you, but I’ll always be here,” he adds. 

“That’s more than enough for me, love.”


End file.
